Marine biologists from Spain and the United Kingdom have described a tiny new species of crustacean from waters off South Africa and have named it after the South African anti-apartheid revolutionary leader Nelson Mandela.
Munidopsis mandelai. Image credit: Macpherson E et al / Natural History Museum, London.
“The finding provides us with another example of how deep sea research continues to reveal the mysteries of underwater ecosystems,” said Diva Amon from both the Natural History Museum in London and the University of Southampton, who is a co-author of a paper published in the journal Zootaxa.
Amon with colleagues collected few specimens of Munidopsis lobsters at the remarkable depth of 750 m while studying the colonization of wood and whale bones by marine organisms on the Southwest Indian Ocean Ridge.
Lobsters had been found in similar situations before, feeding off organisms that use the wood and bone for food.
When the scientists returned to their institutions, they confirmed these specimens as a new species, and all agreed on the name of Munidopsis mandelai.
“The species is named for Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, Father of a Nation, Elder Statesman, and a remarkable man,” they said.
Munidopsis mandelai is a diminutive squat lobster having a carapace of only 0.7 cm long.
It belongs to the genus Munidopsis, the second largest of all the genera of squat lobsters (Galatheoidea).
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